Monday, May 30, 2016

Batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar’s son Arjun is part of
the U-16 West Zone squad now. Sun Risers
won the IPL – Ricky Bhui of Andhra, Siddarth Kaul, Vijay Shankar- were among
the players part of the SRH squad who did not get to play a single match. Many of
us could easily recall that at Mirpur, WI created history winning the U19 WC –
Rishab Pant, who played for Delhi Daredevils was the wicket-keeper then…. So much
so for the knowledge in Cricket – how many of us know : Praggnanandhaa and his glorious fete !!

In Mar 2016, Indian ace Viswanathan Anand played out a thrilling
draw with Holland’s Anish Giri but bowed out of contention for a ticket to the
World Championship after the 13th and penultimate round of the Candidates Chess
Tournament. That was sad news for fans,
as for the first time in 10 years, there
will be a World Championship without Anand, who has won the crown as many as
five times. Either Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine or FabianoCaruana of United
States will challenge Magnus Carlsen of Norway in the next World Championship
match slated to be held in November this year.

In
the game of intelligence played on the square board divided into 64 alternating
dark and light squares with 16 pieces each – it is theThe World Chess Federation, FIDE (Fédération Internationale
des Échecs) that awards several
performance-based titles to chess players, highest being the Grandmaster title. Titles generally require a
combination of Elo rating and norms.Once
awarded, FIDE titles are held for life, though a title may be revoked in
exceptional circumstances.

A chess
title, usually in an abbreviated form, may be used as an honorific. For
example, Viswanathan Anand is styled "GM Viswanathan Anand".

FIDE's
first titles were awarded in 1950 and consisted of 27 Grandmasters (GMs), 94
International Masters, and 17 International Women Masters. IMs (International
Masters) usually have an Elo rating between
2400 and 2500. After becoming an IM, most professional players set their next
goal as becoming a Grandmaster. It is also possible to become a Grandmaster
without ever having been an International Master.

Awonder
Liang the US Chess prodigy earned his
third and final IM norm in Dallas in Nov 2015 when he was just 12 years, 7
months and 6 days old, becoming the
youngest American ever to qualify for the title of International Master. Now
there is a great Indian child prodigy – news reported in Indian Express,
Chennai edition of date.

photo credit : enchessbase.com

There is a story that R
Praggnanandhaa’s parents often invoke to peals of laughter from listeners. When
he was taken to Slovenia for his first World Championship in 2012, he turned up
at the venue tired and jet-lagged. When his mother returned to check on him,
she found Praggnanandhaa asleep at the board, his opponent waiting patiently
for him to wake up and make his move.A couple of years on, the kid who slept
during a game is one of the biggest stories in world chess. The 10-year-old
from Chennai achieved his third and final International Master (IM) norm after
beating a Grandmaster and holding two others at the KIIT International Festival
of Chess in Bhubaneswar.

In comparison, Judit Polgar, the
youngest IM to date, did it only at 11-plus. Sergey Karjakin, the youngest
Grandmaster ever and current challenger to Magnus Carlsen’s crown, became an IM
at 11 years and 11 months. Praggnanandhaa is 10 years and 9 months old. “The
youngest International Master in the history of chess,” his coach R B Ramesh
delivers the punchline.“He got his first IM norm three months ago at the Cannes
Open in France. The second came recently at the Aeroflot Open in Russia. In the
Bhubaneswar tournament, he achieved his third norm and ELO rating of 2400 to
become an International Master. Now, we just have to wait for the FIDE to
process the documentation,” Ramesh says.

Praggnanandhaa’s journey began when he
was just over two years, watching his sister R Vaishali, herself a world girls’
under-14 champion, train. “He owes a lot to the two women in his life,” says
his father A Ramesh Babu, a bank employee.“When his sister Vaishali started
playing, we had little idea what to do. But by the time Praggnanandhaa started
playing, we were able to provide him with all that he needs. Maybe that is why
he has progressed so fast,” he says. Praggnanandhaa’s mother, Nagalakshmi, is
the one who accompanies the little champ to every tournament.“I’m physically
handicapped due to polio, so his mother has to
take him and his sister everywhere,” his father says.

Ramesh Babu, while proud, is also a bit
worried. He knows what his son needs now is a lot of international exposure,
and that means money. “Praggnanandhaa needs to play a lot abroad,” says his
coach R B Ramesh, a noted Grandmaster. “His mindset is already that of a
Grandmaster. With the right opportunities, he can overtake Karjakin and become
the world’s youngest ever GM.”

Have
heard of Clive Lloyd hitting the ball over Chepauk to canal (not sure whether
this really happened ! or was that at Bombay !!)… have seen Krish Srikkanth hit
a straight six in Marina to Wenlock park, the biggest six, I saw at Chepauk was
Kirti Azad hoisting one ! … yet, this one was amazing – a clean 117 M hit.

A
certain six (the ball was well over the rope) was converted into one run and
five runs were saved – I had posted on the athleticism of Benjamin Colin
James Cutting – leaping in the air, grabing
the ball with both hands and throwing it
back inside the ropes – more was to be seen of him in the finals of IPL 2016.

Chester-le-Street
is a town inCounty
Durham,England. Its history goes back to Roman times when it was called
Concangis.CountyDurham is a ceremonial county and (smaller) unitary district
in North East England. By some accounts the cricket ground has a capacity
of around 12000 which is too low by Indian standards. 2nd
Investec test between Srilanka and England is in progress and for sure the
crowd would not have been 1/10th of what it was at Chinnasamy
Bangalore. When partisan crowd was
screaming in delight, at Durham, people were shown reading newspaper.

What a finals
it turned out to be on Sunday, 29th May 2016 - 6Teams
that have won the IPL; Sunrisers Hyderabad are the sixth, after Rajasthan
Royals, Deccan Chargers, Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders, and Mumbai
Indians. For Royal Challengers Bangalore, this was their third defeat in a
final, after losses in 2009 and 2011.

After
over 16 – 47 runs were required with 18 balls to go, Stuart Binny and Sachin
Baby were at the crease in a line-up that read : Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle, AB
de Villiers, KL Rahul, Shane Watson ….. Chris
Gayle gave a thundering start making 76 off 38 with 8 sixers – when he got out
in 10.3, the score was 114 ! – Kohli too made a 50 .. .. yet it was SRH – there
was the late surge from Cuttings, whose 15 ball innings read : 0 0 0 6 0 4 0 1 4 1 4 6 6 1 6.

He has bowled
more than 12000 deliveries in International Cricket, but was hit apart –
perhaps in trying to dart the ball into the stumps from round the wicket, Shane
Watson fell into a trap of his own. A slightly greasy outfield and a wet ball
may have contributed to him slipping in full-tosses instead of yorkers, which
kept getting picked away. One was massive and would remain ever talked
about. Ben Cuttings hoisted him over deep
backward square leg, for a massive 117
metres. SRH had a great bowling line-up.
Bhuvaneswar kumar was outstanding and Mustafizur Rahman was very
impressive. Still it was Bipul Sharma
who had smacked some sixers in earlier matches providing the breakthrough of
deVilliers wicket. This IPL saw sheer
impudence of Mitch McClenaghan, the infinite variety of Dwayne Bravo's slower
balls, yet so many spinners bloomed in
the six-hitting carnage. Bipul Sharma was one, there was Kuldeep Yadav, Piyush
Chawla, Amit Mishra, Sunil Narine, Krunal Pandya (who also made some big hits) Shiv
Kaushik unorthodox action – Pune started playing leggie Murugan Ashwin
alongside Ravi Ashwin. There was also Yuzvendra Chahal and the youngest of the leggies, Adam Zampa – overall, this
IPL was exciting.

The scorecard
almost catches the excitement. Sunrisers
Hyderabad 208 for 7 (Warner 69, Cutting 39*, Jordan 3-45) beat Royal
Challengers Bangalore 200 for 7 (Gayle 76, Kohli 54, Cutting 2-35) by eight
runs. In their first IPL final,
Sunrisers Hyderabad showed their intent early by opting to bat against Royal
Challengers Bangalore at a venue where tall scores have been chased down
nonchalantly. David Warner, their leader, walked the talk and top-scored with a
38-ball 69, before Ben Cutting lent the finishing touches with an unbeaten
15-ball 39 to help them post 208 for 7. Eventually, however, it was their
bowling line-up, the best in the tournament, that delivered the maiden IPL
title with an eight-run win over the hosts at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Royal
Challengers had breached the 200-mark thrice previously at home this season but
choked at the final post… Now, the only Q is what will people who watched IPL
for so many days, do from today on !!!!!

Sunday, May 29, 2016

According
to the French historian Max Gallo, "for over two hundred years, posters
have been displayed in public places all over the world. Visually striking,
they have been designed to attract the attention of passers-by, making us aware
of a political viewpoint, enticing us to attend specific events, or encouraging
us to purchase a particular product or service." A poster, primarily is only a piece of printed
paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface.

Tomorrow
morning, Triplicanites would wake up to
see new posters all over ……. even
though posters are nothing new to
Chennaites or people elsewhere, these are different …

A couple of decades
ago, posters were the best source of reaching the masses. Most Fridays, new cinemas would be released
and whole of Tamilnadu would see double-sized posters of the new release,
attracting more people to the theatres. Slowly the culture permeated so deep
that there were posters hailing 100th day – degenerated to 25 days and even
successful opening. There were some
hailing the audio release and pooja of proposed films even. Posters are the
most preferred form of advertisement for political parties too – in some
places, even death would be communicated through posters. You would have seen
posters of Temple festivals, of political agendas, cinemas, hailing regional
and caste leaders, announcing the death of near and more… – have you ever seen posters pertaining to education or
ones hailing the performance of students
?

We live by the
axiom that ‘Education is the only tool which can uplift the Society and empower
the lower echelons of the Society’. The foremost responsibility of a Social
Service Organisation is to improve the society and help the
underprivileged. From smaller
experimentations to full-fledged quality educational assistance in the form of
SYMA Growth was born on 6th July 2008, a very auspicious day, inaugurated
at NKT National Girls Higher Secondary School, Triplicane by Shri R Sekar, IPS,
(the then) Commissioner of Police, Greater Chennai. We have nicely moved along having completed 8 successful
years. All our students are from the lower echelons of society and some of them
are first generation students with no support in the family. Many do not have
conducive atmosphere at home, nor the proper support – still they strive to
achieve is what is most heartening. Life often is a struggle for have-nots and
there are many who have to struggle for even ordinary things. We try to learn from our experiences trying
to iron-out the rough edges.

At
SYMA Growth, last year, we had : X Std Tamil Medium; X Std English Medium(2
sections); +2 Commerce Group and +2 Science Group. We are always concerned about the performance
of SYMA Growth students who come from lower echelons of society.

This
year in +2 Section : In Commerce
section, out of 29, we had a cent percent pass. 8 of our students have obtained
more than 1000 marks [83.3%]. 2 of Science students got more than 1000. Growth topper is R Devarajan with 1110
marks. In the Science, there is a slight
set-back as 4 out of 27 failed.

The X results were announced on 25th. Our students have done well. In X English medium 50 have passed out of
52. 15 students have secured more than
400 marks. In Tamil medium, which
generally is marked by absenteeism at school level too, 19 passed out of 22;
two of them secured more than 400.
Growth topper is Ms Sandhiya who got 469/500; in Tamil medium – it is V.
Saranraj 466/500 including 100 in Social Science.

Meantime, the
activities for the Educational year 2016-17 have commenced. This year we
have a Corporate sponsor – M/s Manpower Group. We distributed applications, scrutinized
them, have conducted personal interview on 15th May 2016 to +2 students. We have infact addressed the parents of
aspirants in group emphasizing the standards of tuition, need for adherence to
discipline, involvement of parents, attendance of students and all other
aspects. We are keen on raising the
level of education and making our students better informed and become
responsible citizens of the society. The
selection is primarily on economic criteria. Those with parental income of
Rs.20000/- and above are not considered.
It would be of interest to you to
know that the selection was done on certain additional parameters : physically challenged, students
of schools of lower fee structure,
parents illiterate, parental occupation being manual labour / coolie and
the like, orphans, children of destitute / single mother – all accorded some
additional mark enabling that we select students who otherwise do not have
access to quality tuition by paying fees.

Every year at the
time of inauguration, as a carrot for improved performance in studies, we tell
our ‘SYMA Growth’ tuition centre
students that we would
print posters with photos of all students who score more than 400 out of 500 in
X and more than 1000 out of 1200 in +2. This
year 27 of them have their photos and achievements printed and displayed in all
streets and bylanes of Triplicane. This is a grand achievement by our
students considering the fact that most
come from economically poor family, have none to guide them at home and the
environ at home is not so conducive. We appreciate all those who have performed
well and wish that they study well further and march towards a chosen
successful career path. Here is the
poster that would spring up in Triplicane tomorrow hailing our students……….

No words can describe
our gratitude to the management of NK Thirumalachariar Educational Trust and
NKT Boys Higher School. We thank the NKT
Management for providing us the infrastructure and all the support. We thank
Smt. Leela Sekhar, Secreatry of NKT Trust and the Head master of the
School Mr S Venkatadri. We pray to
Almighty for continued success of this project and look forward to continued
support of you all. The success is due
to the blessings of Lord Parthasarathi who guides us in all our steps. We must place on record our thanks and
gratitude to those teachers who taught these students with great dedication,
commitment and devotion. We thank all
our teachers for their care and attendance. Our Coordinator Mrs Thara and the
team who assisted her also deserve special appreciation. . A Big Thank you to all of you who have been supporting us in all our
endeavours.Together We will strive to make the society better place for all of
us.

There are days of
significance ~ 29th May of course was one – it is the day annually
celebrated as ‘International Day of UN Peacekeepers’ – the UN Postal Administration (UNPA) recently
announced the issuance of a set of six
new stamps for the occasion.“On this day, we continue to honour the memory of
those who gave their lives to the cause of peace, and pay tribute to all men
and women who carry on their legacy by serving in the field,” the association
said. “UNPA is proud to issue stamps that feature images of the important work
of UN peacekeepers around the world.”

UN Peacekeeping

The International Day of UN
Peacekeepers was established by the General Assembly in 2002 in tribute to all
the men and women serving in peace operations for their high level of
professionalism, dedication and courage, as well as to honour the memory of
those who have lost their lives in the cause of peace. The
Assembly designated 29 May as the Day because it was the date in 1948 when the
UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), the world body's first peacekeeping
mission, began operations in Palestine.

The International Day of
United Nations Peacekeepers falls on May 29, a day when the world solemnly
remembers the blue berets who have made the supreme sacrifice for the cause of
world peace — there have been 3,471 such bravehearts by last count. These bravehearts of different nationalities
and cultures, donning different uniforms, were bound with a singular vision of
dousing the fires in a land alien to them. They were unsung
heroes in conflicts not of their making, where the sanctity and territorial
integrity of their own motherland were not at stake — and hence the anonymity
of their departure. Here are excerpts
from a well-written article by Manmohan Bahadur in Daily Mail. He was
in the IAF’s first UN mission to Sudan.

India, a founding member of
the UN, has been in the vanguard of peacekeeping since 1950. Hundred and sixty-five Indians have been
among these unheralded, the largest sacrifice by any troop-contributing nation;
as India pushes for restructuring the Security Council to make it more
representative, it is time that its role in UN peacekeeping is revisited. Isn’t it ironical
that uniformed personnel trained to kill, use their arms to maintain peace? As
Dag Hammarskjöld, the first UN Secretary General, succinctly put it,
“Peacekeeping is not a job for soldiers, but only soldiers can do it.”

India, a founding member of
the UN, has been in the vanguard of peacekeeping right from 1950 when it
contributed medical personnel and troops to the UN Repatriation Commission in
Korea. There has been no looking back since and more than 2,08,000 Indian
troops have donned the blue beret over the years. The Indian Army and the Air
Force have been in the forefront and while the Army has participated in 49
missions since then, IAF contingents have won laurels in Somalia, Sierra Leone,
Congo and the Sudan. In fact, Op Khukri,
a joint air and ground mission launched in Sierra Leone in 2000 by contingents
of the Indian Army and the IAF to free almost 250 UN troops held prisoner for
months, is the stuff of legend and used as a model case study in UN training
centres.

Is the loss of human lives
and expense of material worth the effort? Does India gain any tangible or
intangible benefits from its contribution in the world of power politics? In yesteryears, by the theory of international
relations, a country would be regarded as a ‘power’ based on its military
capability; thus, the British Empire had its sea power and the Prussians their
Army. The modern day has seen an
expansion of the concept of ‘power’ to include soft power and an intelligent
combination of the two, termed ‘smart’ power.

While the US has hard
military power and soft technological power in abundance, it has not succeeded
in combining it smartly so as to be ‘accepted’ politically and socially as a
benefactor in the comity of nations. The same possibly holds good for other
Western nations too. India, on the other hand, lacks military power beyond a
level but has an abundance of soft power capability. All these are in-built in a UN peacekeeping
assignment and India’s active involvement, besides being an indicator of the
nation’s altruistic intent, enhances its efforts to be accepted as an important
player on the world stage. Indian troops
are model peacekeepers and accepted as being neutral in their handling of
warring factions.

Peacekeeping missions have
generally been in excolonial states where the legacy of their shackled past
fosters a feeling of solidarity with Indian peacekeepers and enables amicable
solutions through a combination of humane understanding and display of subtle
power. Indian jawans are leading the pack, living up to the national ethos of
peace for everyone. They deserve the world’s
undiluted gratitude, says the author, a
retired Air Vice Marshal, is a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Air Power
Studies, New Delhi.

A topic like this would
never be complete without reference to the sad but strategic - Indian Peace
Keeping Force (IPKF) performing a peacekeeping operation in Sri Lanka between
1987 and 1990. It was formed under the mandate of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan
Accord that aimed to end the Sri Lankan Civil War between militant Sri Lankan
Tamil nationalists and the Sri Lankan military. The main task of the IPKF was
to disarm the different militant groups.
The IPKF was inducted into Sri Lanka on the request of Sri Lankan
President J. R. Jayewardene under the terms of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord.

The IPKF began withdrawing
from Sri Lanka in 1989, following the election of the V. P. Singh government in
India and on the request of the newly elected Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe
Premadasa. The last IPKF contingents left Sri Lanka in March 1990 after bloody
toil.

Saturday, May 28, 2016

US
President Obama laid a wreath at the Hiroshima Peace
Memorial on Friday, telling an audience that included survivors of America’s
atomic bombing in 1945 that technology as devastating as nuclear arms demands a
“moral revolution.”Thousands of Japanese lined the route of the presidential
motorcade to the memorial in the hopes of glimpsing Mr. Obama, the first
sitting American president to visit the most potent symbol of the dawning of
the nuclear age. “Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death
fell from the sky and the world was changed,” Mr. Obama said in opening his
speech at the memorial.

Obama
was not expected to apologize for the U.S. action to hasten the end of World
War II and he did not during his 20-minute-long remarks.In the Hiroshima
museum's guest book before his speech, the President wrote that he hoped the
world will "find the courage, together, to spread peace, and pursue a
world without nuclear weapons.‎"During
the speech, the park was silent except for a circling helicopter, chirping
birds and camera shutters.Obama said there is a "shared
responsibility" to look into the "eye of history" and ask what
must be done to prevent another nuclear weapon being used.He urged that the
world make moral progress alongside its remarkable scientific advancements.

During
his visit, President Barack Obama hugged Shigeaki Mori, an atomic bomb survivor
who created the memorial for American WWII POWs killed at Hiroshima. Mr Obama spoke to two survivors and in an
address called on nations to pursue a world without nuclear weapons.At least
140,000 people died in Hiroshima and another 74,000 three days later in a
second bombing in Nagasaki.Mr Obama first visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial
Museum before walking to the Peace Memorial Park, accompanied by Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe.Both men stood in front of the eternal flame. Mr Obama laid a wreath
first, followed by Mr Abe.

Back
home, Economic Times reports issuance of a liability policy – a significant one
at that – the First Nuclear Liability Policy aimed to push private
investment.

The
report states that the country's first
Nuclear Operator's Liability Policy has been issued to Nuclear Power
Corporation of India , underwritten by a consortium of insurance companies
through the India Nuclear Insurance Pool. The policy was the missing component
from the set of requirements for getting private investment in nuclear power -
the doors for which were opened ten years ago when the then Manmohan Singh -
led government signed the civil nuclear agreement with the US.

The
report adds that the entireRs
1,500-crore India Nuclear Insurance Pool is entirely supported by domestic
companies and is managed by General Insurance Corporation ( GIC ), which has
also committed funds to the pool. The first policy was issued by New India
Assurance - the largest state-owned company. Chairperson, GIC, is quoted as saying "In all history, there have been only
three nuclear accidents - Three Mile Island (US), Chernobyl (now Ukraine) and
Fukushima (Japan) and the probability of another is remote. Though the nuclear deal ended India's
isolation, investment was not forthcoming. This was because nuclear risks are
generally excluded by insurers and nuclear power operators have a maximum
liability of Rs 1,500 crore under the new law.

At Feroz Shah Kotla, in the crucial match, with
Aaron Finch and Dwayne Smith in the
line-up, Suresh Raina chose to open with
Brendon McCullum and Eklavya Rakesh Dwivedi ! – it was indeed an engrossing
match as Gujarat Lions set up a target of 163 thanks to 50 by Finch.

A certain six (the ball was well over the rope) was
converted into one run and five runs were saved. That was the athleticism of Benjamin Colin James Cutting - 14th over of Lions' innings, Aaron Finch slammed a
Barinder Sran delivery to mid-wicket fence, ball went up in the air and crossed
the ropes, Cutting leapt in the air, grabbed the ball with both hands and threw
it back inside the ropes, preventing a certain over-boundary. More drama to follow - Sunrisers Hyderabad
were 117 for six and needed 46 off 25 balls when Bipul Sharma joined his
captain David Warner in the middle. Before you read
more of the match, do you know Abhay Sharma, who had kept wickets for Railways
& Delhi !

"In our heads, we have already won [the
IPL]," KL Rahul is quoted as saying at an informal media briefing, two
days ahead of the final. - they have one match to go, the finals where
they will face the rising Sunrisers of Hyderabad, in great form. An unbeaten 58-ball 93 from David Warner,
his eighth half-century of the season, steered Sunrisers Hyderabad into their
maiden IPL final. Warner batted through a tense chase of 163 even as Lions
chipped away at the wickets, and found a calm lower-order ally in Bipul Sharma
at a critical juncture when Sunrisers needed 46 from 25 balls. Bipul has been a local all rounder, and in the
last match he struck two sixers of Morne Morkel; here he was in the team as a
left-arm spinner. He struck 27 off 11
with 3 sixers clinching the match.

In the 17th Pravin Kumar lost his
calm. Bipul Sharma hit him for a straight six, and then failed to pick a slower
ball, sending a leading edge looping agonisingly over his head and beyond his
reach. With Warner now on strike, Praveen steamed in from around the wicket and
delivered the perfect yorker, moving swiftly to his left to cut off a possible
single. Then he spun around and shaped for a mock throw at the batsman's end. Could
not make out whether Warner said something (though after the event, he appeared
so unruffled), Praveen ran towards Warner in an ugly spat charging, Dinesh
Karthik stepped in, sprinting from his wicketkeeper's post to put himself
between them and lead Praveen away with a calming hand on his shoulder. Warner himself seemingly showed his anger to Tom
Moody, the Sunrisers coach, who had come out with drinks and instructions at
the fall of the sixth wicket.

For the Indian team to Zimbabwe captained by MS
Dhoni, Sanjay Bangar, the former India and Railways allrounder, has been
appointed India's head coach. Bangar, 43, had worked with the team as assistant
coach till their previous international assignment, the World T20 in March and
April this year, under team director Ravi Shastri. Abhay Sharma, who most
recently worked with the India Under-19 and A teams, was named fielding coach
for the tour. He had also worked with the Rest of India team that beat Ranji
Trophy champions Mumbai in dramatic fashion in the 2016 Irani Cup.

Away, the summer of 2017 could see the first day-night Test staged
in England, with Lord's and Edgbaston the most likely venues. Both venues are
keen, in theory, to explore the possibility of staging an August Test against
West Indies under lights. The final decision whether and where a floodlit game
is played will be made by the ECB. A key part of the attraction for
Warwickshire would be the novelty. Under normal circumstances, they might
expect a Test against West Indies to prove a relatively tough sell and feel
that staging it under lights could help attract a larger audience. The MCC, who
have an excellent record of selling games against most opposition, also have a
history of spearheading the experimentation into day-night cricket and are
expected to discuss the issue at up-coming committee meetings in June. While
Lord's is limited to 15 days of floodlight usage a year - any time the
floodlights are raised constitutes a usage - to appease local residents, they
would expect to allocate 10 of those days to the two Tests they host each
season.

Tomorrow’s late eveninger between RCB & SRH
sure would be an entertainer.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

The
cultures of the West should look beyond the Roman and Greek civilizations for
new inspiration. There existed centuries
before a great work of antiquity attributed to a sage. Its date of composition can never be fixed
with any certainty, particularly as, in common with other Sanskrit classics, it
was not at first committed to writing but passed on generations from singer to
singer.

The sage Valmiki,
Chief among Munis and most eloquent of men, constantly engaged in study of holy
scriptures enquired the most knowledgeable Narada - “who is there in
the World, endowed with excellent and heroic qualities, who is versed in all
duties of life, grateful, truthtul, firm in his vows, benevolent to all beings,
learned, eloquent, handsome, patient, slow to anger – one who is truly great;
who is free from envy and One whose wrath can strike terror to celestial
beings. Narada replied - " Rare indeed are those, endowed with the qualities
thou hast enumerated, yet I can tell thee of such a one – born in Ikshwaku
clan, named Sri Rama. Srimad Ramayanam, the most ancient and reverred
epic comprises of nearly 24000 slogas stating the journey of Lord Rama set to
annihilate the demon Ravana in lanka. In
this beautiful land replete with scholars, I do not possess enough knowledge to
write at length on the mahakavya.

Rampur Raza
Library, located in Rampur, Uttar
Pradesh, is a repository of Indo-Islamic
cultural heritage and a treasure-house of knowledge established in last decades
18th century, and built up by successive Nawabs of Rampur and now managed by
Government of India. It contains very rare and valuable collection of
manuscripts, historical documents, miniature paintings, astronomical
instruments and rare illustrated works in Arabic and Persian.

We have heard about
Persia. Prince of Persia is an
entertaining video game created by Jordan Mechner, originally published by
Brøderbund, then the Learning Company, and currently Ubisoft. It was all about
setting free a beautiful princess amidst various dangers.

Persian, also known
as Farsi, the predominant modern
descendant of Old Persian, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the
Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily
spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
Persian is a pluricentric language and its grammar is similar to that of
many contemporary European languages. Wikipedia states that there are approximately
110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official
status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also
been a prestigious cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central
Asia, and South Asia by the various empires based in the regions.

The
holy Ramayan has been translated in many languages. Valmiki Ramayan is available in many English
versions. Way back in 1880 FS Growse
translated Thulasidas Ramayan. In 1952,
Oxford University Press published the work of W. Dagnal P Hill. Now we are reading more about one particular
version of 1715, which has attracted so much of media attention, thanks to our
PM Shri Narendra Modi.

US President Obama’s historic visit to Hanoi,
where he announced the U.S. is ending the 41-year U.S. arms embargo against
Vietnam, and also oversaw new business deals worth about $16 billion was
historical. More fraught part of the
continent is that of three leaders—Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, Indian
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani—signing a
flurry of deals in Tehran on Monday, aimed at reworking political obstacles
that have hobbled the region’s economies through years of war and economic
boycotts.

Shri Modi spoke
thus - Centuries of free exchange of
ideas and traditions, poets and craftsmen, art and architecture, culture and
commerce have enriched both our civilizations. Our heritage has also been a
source of strength and economic growth for our nations. The richness of Persian
heritage is an integral part of the fabric of the Indian society. A part of
Iranian culture lives in Indian hearts. And, a slice of Indian heritage is
woven into the Iranian society. Our ancient heroes and epics bear striking
parallels. .. .. .. .. .. The great
medieval poets of India have called the Persian and Sanskrit the two sisters.
India's religious epic Ramayana which has seen over a dozen translations in
Persian is known to have about 250 words of Persian. It served as a court
language in medieval India. But, its popularity is also because it is written
on the hearts of the Indians. It is taught in around 40 universities in India.
All India Radio has been running the Persian language service for last 75
years. India has a proud collection of almost 5 million manuscripts of Persian
in public and private collections. There are more than 20 million documents in
Persian in National and State Archives.

More than the
speech, Indian Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi, gifted the supreme leader of
Iran Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei a specially commissioned
reproduction of a rare seventh-century manuscript of the Holy Quran attributed
to Hazrat Ali, the fourth caliph. Written in Kufic script, this manuscript is
stated to be a prized possession of the Ministry of Culture’s Rampur Raza Library.
Modiji also gifted the Iranian President
Dr. Hassan Rouhani specially commissioned reproductions of Mirza Asadullah Khan
Ghalib’s collection of poetry in Persian, Kulliyat-e-Farsi-e-Ghalib, as also Sumair Chand’s Persian
translation of Ramayana.

Translated
into Persian in 1715 and copied in 1826, Sumair Chand’s Ramayana is a rare
manuscript at the Ministry of Culture’s Rampur Raza Library, and contains over
260 illustrations – possibly the largest number in any hand-written Ramayana
manuscript. Not
much was written about this earlier, but the media is all buzz about the
Persian language translation of holy Ramayana !

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

The entire flight
lasted just 770 seconds, yet, Monday, 23rd May 2016 is certainly a
day to remember for on this day, the
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) embarked on a first-of-its-kind test
— hoisting into space what is essentially a scale model of what would be
India’s indigenously designed space shuttle. The 6.5m-long Re-usable Launch
Vehicle–Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) weighs about 1.75 tonnes and is the
result of more than a decade of development costing around Rs 95 crore.

The space research
activities were initiated in our country during the early 1960’s, when
applications using satellites were in experimental stages even in the United
States. With the live transmission of Tokyo Olympic Games across the Pacific by
the American Satellite ‘Syncom-3’ demonstrating the power of communication
satellites, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, the founding father of Indian space programme,
quickly recognized the benefits of space technologies for India. ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) vision is to "harness space technology
for national development, while pursuing space science research and planetary
exploration". Formed in 1969, ISRO
superseded the erstwhile Indian National Committee for Space Research
(INCOSPAR) established in 1962.

ISRO built India's
first satellite, ‘Aryabhata’ which was
launched by the Soviet Union on 19 April in 1975. In 1980, Rohini became the
first satellite to be placed in orbit by an Indian-made launch vehicle, SLV-3.
ISRO subsequently developed two other rockets: the Polar Satellite Launch
Vehicle (PSLV) for launching satellites into polar orbits and the
Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) for placing satellites into geostationary
orbits. These rockets have launched numerous communications satellites and
earth observation satellites. ISRO sent lunar orbiter, Chandrayaan-1, in Oct 2008 and Mars orbiter, in Sept 2014, making
India the first nation to succeed on its first attempt.

It has been almost
five years since Nasa sent its Space Shuttle on its final flight into orbit,
but a new generation of reusable spacecraft are preparing the ground for a new
race into the heavens. Counties including Japan and Russia have joined private
companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX in building reusable space rockets, and
now India is the latest country to step up to the challenge.

In what is a proud
moment for India, seven metre (23-foot) scale model space shuttle blasted off
from a southeastern space port, in a crucial step to eventually developing a
full-scale, reusable one to send up satellites in the future. The success of India’s first winged body aerospace vehicle
operating in hypersonic flight regime brings fame.In this experimental mission, the HS9 solid
rocket booster carrying RLV-TD lifted off from the First Launch Pad at Satish
Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota at 07:00hr IST.After a successful flight of 91.1second, HS9
burn out occurred, following which both HS9 and RLV-TD mounted on its top
coasted to a height of about 56 km. At that height, RLV-TD separated from HS9
booster and further ascended to a height of about 65km. From that peak altitude of 65 km, RLV-TD began
its descent followed by atmospheric re-entry at around Mach 5 (five times the
speed of sound). The vehicle’s Navigation, Guidance and Control system
accurately steered the vehicle during this phase for safe descent. After
successfully surviving a high temperatures of re-entry with the help of its
Thermal Protection System (TPS), RLV-TD successfully glided down to the defined
landing spot over Bay of Bengal, at a distance of about 450km from Sriharikota,
thereby fulfilling its mission objectives. The vehicle was successfully tracked
during its flight from ground stations at Sriharikota and a shipborne terminal.
Total flight duration from launch to landing of this mission of the delta
winged RLV-TD, lasted for about 770seconds.

ISRO acknowledge
the support of Indian coast guard and National Institute of Ocean technology
(NIOT) for the mid sea wind measurement and shipborne telemetry respectively in
this mission. The move marks a crucial step towards developing a full-scale
resuable model to launch satellites in the future and highlights India's
presence as a serious space faring nation.

Indian scientists hope that subsequent larger
version, expected to be six times the size, will be launched over the next
decade and will make it safely back to Earth. India faces stiff competition including from
global companies which are developing their own reusable rockets after Nasa
retired its space shuttle programme in 2011. Reusable rockets would cut costs
and waste in the space industry, which currently loses millions of dollars in
jettisoned machinery after each launch. Billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX and
Amazon owner Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin have already successfully undertaken
their own test launches. Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency are also
developing similar technology and are in testing stages. SpaceX has managed to
land three rockets from space back on Earth - two on sea and one on land, while
Blue Origin's New Shepard successfully completed a third launch and vertical
landing in April this year.

Even as India basks
in glory, some critics are trying to cast some blame stating that US spent an estimated $192 billion on the
shuttle programme from 1971 to 2010. "The average cost per launch works
out to $1.2 billion, which is as much as the total annual Indian space budget.
It is a costly experiment that India can ill-afford."

Monday, May 23, 2016

It is a rare phenomenon of human relations with
animals – in some zoos, the animal keepers become so friendly with the animals,
that they respond to human language and calling by names !!!

In life – sometimes there would be
options ~ here are 3 different occurrences – all could have gone the same way
!!!

A
couple of years ago, in a grisly incident, witnessed by scores and
captured live on many cameras, a 200-kg tiger mauled and killed a youth after
he fell into the animal's moat in the Delhi Zoo…… that gory incident went viral
on social media, also raising the Q on why people who were keen on
filming the incident did not respond in any manner trying to help the
victim. The man in his 20s reportedly had either fallen
off or had jumped into the moat which separated the tiger’s enclosure from the
visitor’s gallery. The victim reportedly had history of mental illness –
and it was described that authorities were in a state of helplessness.

lions at Vandalur zoo

Miles
away, in Chile, a man reportedly stripped naked, jumped in to lion enclosure,
in a bid to feed himself to the big cat – a suicide attempt of a different
order. The man, who has been named by local media as Franco Luis Ferrada Roman,
was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment and was said to be in grave
condition. The man survived but in the
process, two animals, which did nothing wrong were killed.

Authorities
in Santiago confirmed that the two African lions were put down as they severely
mauled the 20-year-old man who had broken into their cage early on Saturday. Zoo
keepers killed two lions to save the man, who was gravely injured in the
incident. A suicide note was reported to have been found in his clothing. It is reported that the young man broke into the enclosure, took off
his clothes and jumped into the middle, horrifying other visitors who witnessed
the attack.

Once
inside, the lions reportedly immediately pounced on him and began to 'play'
with him. At this point, zookeepers intervened in the attack and shot the two
lions in order to save his life. The director of the zoo, Alejandra Montalva,
said: 'We believe that this person entered as a visitor and paid for his
ticket. She told local media the park was crowded with visitors at the time of
the incident. The zoo director said she was 'deeply affected' by the deaths of
the two lions, a male and a female. 'The zoo has an established protocol
because people's lives are very important to us,' said the director. She added
that there were no fast-acting tranquilizers available to stop the lions from
mauling the man.

The
attack occurred in full view of visitors, who could only watch in horror as the
man was mauled and the lions - one male, one female - were killed. One witness,
told Chilean radio station Bio Bio that the security personnel at the zoo were
slow to react and that the animals did not attack the man as soon as he entered
the enclosure. She also said the man was 'shouting things about Jesus'. Sadly, it was the animals which paid with their lives for the insane
act of the man.

Back
home, it was the same African lion enclosure, slightly different incident, with
a much different result. This time it was a drunken man’s misadventure into the
enclosure of lions, in Hyderabad, seemingly to shake hands with a lioness.

At Nehru Zoological Park in Hyderabad, the
alertness of the zoo animal keepers, prevented the loss of life. Indian Express reports that it was around
4.55 pm when 35-year-old Mukesh Kumar jumped into the moat, ignoring the
warnings of onlookers, calling the lioness 'darling'. As he splashed into the
water, the lioness Radhika moved towards him. Soon her partner, lion Krishna
too started approaching the intruder. Mukesh, however, was not the one to fear.
In a fully inebriated state, Mukesh extended his hand towards the wild animals.
As the onlookers screamed in panic and started throwing whatever they could at
the lions to ward them away from Mukesh, the animal keepers rushed to the spot.
Animal keeper R Papaiah called Radhika, the lioness, to move aside even as
Mukesh kept extending his arm to her.

real incident at Hyderabad zoo : photo credit : Indian Express

To the luck of Mukesh Kumar, native of Rajasthan, Papaiah,
who has been taking care of the two wild cats for the last seven years, also intervened
calling the two to step back. The animal keepers managed to divert the
attention of the wildcats, while Mukesh, after much pleading, was rescued from
the jaws of death without a scratch and then handed over to the police. Mukesh Kumar, hailing from Kurdiya in Sikar district is a labourer
working with metro rail project. Kumar reached the zoo along with five of his
co-workers after gulping down a few pegs in the afternoon. Zoo curator Shivani
Dogra, who took charge only a day before, appealed to the visitors to follow
rules to ensure their safety.

Sunday, May 22, 2016

IPL is drawing to a
close - Home advantage counts. With four
spin options to call upon on a parched Eden Gardens pitch, Kolkata Knight
Riders strangled Sunrisers Hyderabad to defend 171 and pull off a 22-run
victory. The win helped them secure a playoff berth, while ending Mumbai
Indians' journey in the tournament. Sunil Narine delivered his most incisive
bowling spell of the tournament, with figures of 3 for 26 in four overs. His
partner in crime was Kuldeep Yadav, the 21-year-old chinaman bowler who had
replaced Piyush Chawla in the Knight Riders XI.

To the next stage,
Gujarat Lions are on top with 18 points – Sunrisers & KKR have qualified
and would wait for the result of RCB and Daredevils, which will not only decide
who will quality, but also the rank…

Miles away, Democrats knew a general election battle
between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would be rough, but many never
considered the potential of a nailbiter. Last week, Indian Nation was abuzz with
actitivy. Five Assembly elections, and
five different winners. Voters have not distributed their favours equitably.
The Congress, the only party with a realistic chance of being part of a winning
coalition in all the five elections, won only one, the least important
politically, the Union Territory of Puducherry.

In some manner, this man
garnered more attention. Less than seven
hours after a midnight landing in India, Apple CEO Tim Cook was spotted in a famous
Hindu temple in Mumbai. He was seen
there with Anant Ambani, son of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, whose
Jio 4G service is expected to be a game-changer for mobile internet in India by
the end of 2016. India was the sole
bright spot in those results as Apple reported its first-ever revenue decline
in 13 years. While global iPhone sales fell for the first time ever, a drop of
16% from the first quarter of 2015, they rose 56% in India in the same quarter.

Mr Cook's visit to
India is a first for an Apple CEO. None of the California-based technology
giant's seven CEOs ever visited India while in office, though Steve Jobs
famously came here as a backpacking hippie looking for "answers" in
the mid-1970s. India accounts for just
1% of global iPhone sales and Apple's share of India's mobile handset sales is
1.5%. India's market is dominated by phones under 5,000 rupees, while Apple's
recent models start at 39,000 rupees ($580; £390).

Expressing interest
in making Apple products in India, the global technology giant’s chief Tim Cook
on Saturday discussed with Prime Minister Narendra Modiji the “possibilities of manufacturing” and
tapping the young talent pool in the country.
On his maiden visit to India, the Apple CEO also discussed with Modi
issues regarding cyber-security and data encryption.

Cook has already
announced during this trip setting of an app development centre in Bengaluru
and one for maps in Hyderabad. During his meeting with Modiji, Cook highlighted
the immense potential for app development in the country. He also narrated to
the Prime Minister his experiences, including a visit to Siddhivinayak temple
in Mumbai and watching a cricket match in Kanpur.

Shri Narendra Modi,
appreciating Cook, said that in India “seeing is believing” and added these
experiences would definitely steer his business decisions. The California-based
maker of iPhone and iPads plans to sell refurbished smartphones , though such proposals have been rejected twice.
Moreover, the company also plans to set up its own retail outlets, and is
seeking ease of local sourcing rules for it to set up shops here. Meanwhile,
delegation members accompanying Apple CEO also spoke of their experiences in
rural Rajasthan, where several villages have recently been electrified and
women are being skilled to assemble and operate solar energy equipment.

Cook should be a
stranger to Cricket, more specifically the club league – IPL. The Rising Pune
Supergiants signed off their maiden season of the Indian Premier League with a
thrilling 4-wicket win over Kings XI Punjab on Saturday evening. After KXIP had
posted 172-7, RPS captain MS Dhoni produced a special effort, helping his team
past the line off the last ball of the match. The win meant Rising Pune
Supergiants finished 7th in the 8-team VIVO IPL standings, while Kings XI
Punjab had to be content with the wooden spoon.

Apple Inc CEO Tim
Cook landed in Kanpur to get a taste of an IPL cricket match between Gujarat
Lions and Kolkata Knight Riders, on invitation from League chairman Rajeev
Shukla. During the first innings, Cook spoke to Alan Wilkins and said, “This is
incredibly exciting, it’s my first cricket game. I’m hooked to it! The talent
here in India is huge. We want to tap into the iOS ecosystem.” Lot is cooking !

A lot of excitement
was evident at the Green Park Stadium which hosted an IPL game for the first
time. It was also the first time that a game was played under lights here.Away, the Federation of International
Cricketers Associations (FICA) has claimed that the Masters Cricket League, a
private T20 tournament for retired cricketers held in Dubai and Sharjah earlier
this year, has not paid "a significant number of players" according
to their contractual agreements. The dishonouring of player contracts is an
issue that the entire global game should address, but not an issue in IPL which
draws crowds even for the deadest of dead rubbers. Two knocked-out teams -
Rising Pune Supergiants and Kings XI Punjab - were desperate not to finish at
the bottom of the pile. The final over began with Supergiants needing 23. M
Vijay's key men in the end overs - Mohit Sharma and Sandeep Sharma - had bowled
out. Axar was in the hot seat. It
ultimately boiled down to 12 off the last two balls, with MS Dhoni, the supreme
star, facing off against Axar Patel, the rising star. Dhoni unleashed his
attacking avatar to bring back memories of his heyday; his back-to-back sixes
over midwicket delivered Supergiants a sensational four-wicket win in
Visakhapatnam.

When asked three areas of success that youngsters should
focus on, the Apple CEO said, “Three areas of success: Do what you love, put
your heart into it and enjoy what you do.”